Posted
by
kdawsonon Friday March 12, 2010 @12:58PM
from the but-everybody's-doing-it dept.

theodp writes "ComputerWorld reports that IBM has stopped providing breakouts on US employees, closing a door to data that provided insights into the bellwether company's employment shift. In its latest Annual Report, Big Blue only provides its global headcount, and an IBM spokesman confirmed that disclosure of US headcount is a thing of the past. The Rochester Institute of Technology's Ron Hira called the US workforce data critical for policymakers trying to understand the dynamics of offshoring. 'By hiding its offshoring, IBM is doing a disservice to America — through omission the company is providing misleading labor market signals and information to policy makers,' Hira said. Ironically, CEO Sam Palmisano's Letter to Shareholders, which accompanied the Annual Report, touts how IBM's Analytics and 'Smarter Planet' efforts are empowering US government decision-makers. Nondisclosure domestically and abroad seems to be the new rule of thumb for Big Tech, sparking calls for government intervention." IBM laid off about 10,000 US workers last year, and 2,900 so far this year, according to the Alliance@IBM, a labor union.

It would be trivial for those policy makers to order GSA to drop IBM from its vendor list...

Trivial? I'm not sure that's the right word to describe it. Sure, it may be trivial to remove them from the list... but far less trivial to disengage IBM from current projects and bring in new contractors. How much would that cost?

It would be trivial for those policy makers to order GSA to drop IBM from its vendor list...

Trivial? I'm not sure that's the right word to describe it. Sure, it may be trivial to remove them from the list... but far less trivial to disengage IBM from current projects and bring in new contractors. How much would that cost?

Not much. I've seen any number of projects where the company hired in all the service provider's employees, and fired the service provider. It's happened to IBM and every other outsourcer in the book, many, many times already. Essentially all that changes is the name that signs the paychecks.

Almost every critical government contract requires hardware and software based on open standards to avoid exactly that situation. Unless you're talking about mainframes, which are largely legacy systems, replacing an AIX box with a Solaris, Linux or HPUX box is no big deal.

IBM is clearly trying to hide its US headcount for the purpose of hiding its replacing American employees with foreign workers in other countries.

IBM is one of the few companies that remained consistently profitable during the worst recession since the Great Depression. This profitability was accomplished by replacing high-wage Americans with low-wage foreigners in India, China, etc. Seeing the writing on the wall, IBM management has decided to accelerate the reduction of the American workforce.

The shareholders love this strategy since it maximizes their return on investment. The only problem is a political one: Washington will retaliate against IBM if IBM drastically reduces its American workforce in favor of cheap overseas labor. Hence, IBM has ceased reporting the size of the American workforce.

Big Blue only provides its global headcount, and an IBM spokesman confirmed that disclosure of US headcount is a thing of the past.

Companies that operate contrary to the national interest of the countries they operate in, shouldn't be allowed to operate in those countries.Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.--Thomas Jefferson

If Microsoft and IBM likes chinese and indian labor so much- how about making the executives move there.

Then if they cross the government, they can simply disappear at night (in china) or perhaps be killed by some random extremist (india).

But no... they stay in the u.s. reaping the benefits of our legal system, police, military protection, democracy and "relative" safety (i.e. our government does bad things too- but not to the wealthy much any more).

If IBM has 1000 employees in the US and 90000 employees overseas- then why should they get us government work any more.

Seriously-- this is going to fix itself. Rampant inflation in china and india (over 100% on the low end of society) combined with deflation here and the retiring baby boomers should give us some relief in under five years.

Likewise, it's reached a point where the u.s. consumer isn't willing to spend future money any more because that future money is increasingly dubious.

Overseas capitalism wouldn't be so bad if it resulted in cheaper prices here. But it doesn't. Laws protect the right to sell drugs for 1/50th of the cost there and forbid importation here. To sell movies for $2.50 there and $20.00 here. You can't have it both ways. You can't ship the jobs over there AND keep charging 10 to 20 times as much for products in the U.S.

I believe that most investors would think that a comnpany's US-based employee head-count to be "material" to their investment decisions, particularly when the Federal government is both a customer of that company, and interested in these numbers. I also think it wouldn't be that big a stretch to consider not disclosing these numbers a a violation of insider trading laws, given that the top executives and the board of directors would be familiar with the counts.

Companies that operate contrary to the national interest of the countries they operate in, shouldn't be allowed to operate in those countries.

So you support Iran's and NK's and China's blocking of youtube/twitter/google, etc? If you don't, watch out for your double standards. If you really think companies shouldn't be allowed to exist while annoying their governments, please go work for the gleat leader. I hate IBM but I must say this; they're on their right not to disclose what isn't required.

Principles (free market, free speech, etc) are only meaningful if you stand by them when they are inconvenient.

Stop with the federal and state contract with IBM. And when they give up the data, then it is time for contracts to be tied to the nations monetary difference if the nation fixes their money. In particular, since a lot of IBM hardware is made in China, then we should determine the true difference on their money, and then their contracts should be adjusted accordingly. So, if it is determined that money should be 1 to 1 with Yuan to Dollar, rather than the currently fixed 7 to 1, then the contract needs to b

I think ceasing to disclose U.S. employment sends a very clear labor market signal: The off-shoring will continue, probably at a rate much higher than you were thinking or are comfortable with. What more does a policy maker really need to know than "IBM is shipping jobs over seas so fast they don't want to talk about it"?

The main thing is to what extent the taxpayers are subsidizing IBM and will be asked to cough up in the future. Also any Government consulting contracts, especially military related issues, are important.

Other than that, I would say it is a truth in advertising issue. Corporations lie a lot.

I run a small company. The reality is, off shoring especially with the Open Source market makes entirely too much sense from a business perspective. I can have 4 United States based people, and another 12 strategically located throughout the world. The cost of the 4 is the same as the 12. It is better for my customers, and frankly my pocket book. Also, to be honest Open Source expertise is easier to obtain off american shores.

The downside to the largest economy in the world is that it is also ridiculously expensive. Of course not as bad as western Europe but still...

No, he didn't say that at all. He said that he has an easier time finding open-source expertise offshore. I find that to be a highly dubious claim, however. IME as an embedded Linux engineer and long-time Linux fan, I've found that most Linux expertise is found in industrialized Western nations, mainly the USA and western Europe. There's very little in India or China. Remember, in those countries, people aren't very idealistic about things like software licenses and such, they really just chase after the money, and they don't care about pirating MSDN or whatever.

Just look at the names of all the contributors to the Linux kernel and other open-source projects. Most of them are European and American. I have seen more and more interest in Linux with Indians recently, however.

If he had said he has an easier time finding open-source expertise in Europe, that I could believe. But since he also remarked that Europe was even more expensive than America, I don't think that's what he meant at all. Now, if he had said he has an easier time finding people who claim to have open-source expertise offshore, but in reality are completely incompetent, that I would believe. I've seen an unbelievable amount of outright lying on resumes with people from the east.

its' time for the usa, and especially new york state, to stop granting ibm special favors. all ibm has done for new york is slowly kill the hudson valley technology employment sector, including entire cities. ibm has betrayed its birthplace

fuck ibm, treat it like a foreign entity with questionable and dubious agendas. because ibm most certainly treats the usa like that, while the usa still coddles and mollifies it, like a deluded lover. ibm's betrayal of the usa and especially the hudson valley is longstanding and obvious, and now it is just passive aggressive, like a cheating spouse who has gotten away with countless crimes and is now embarrassed at how thoroughly he has duped their spouse

its a charade. fuck ibm, ibm only deserves scorn and hostility, unless you're in bangalore

i personaly think NO company should be given special favors. sorry i know that when a data center or a manufacturing plant is being built that it will bring jobs to a community BUT having communities fight over them by giving tax breaks or cheap land is just wrong - if nothing your stealing jobs from another community. And it isn't fair at all to the smaller or mid sized companies that can't offer 1,000 jobs but rather 50.. the smaller ones end up paying a higher premium and there for it is harder to com

it used to be a major employer in hudson valley towns like kingston, poughkeepsie, fishkill, westchester, and new york city, and all the rust belt cities along the thruway corridor to buffalo

but this started shrinking as it went international, and accelerated as the political center of gravity within the company has shifted to bangalore. hey, it makes sense economically, and its good for india. but ibm has shafted its birthplace, and as someone from the area, so i say fuck them for the betrayal

as a historical major and influential employer, it has developed relationships with new york state and the feds for decades. therefore, the story of ibm is a shining burning example of how corporate money destroys my country

if you want to start your own ibm hate machine, and you should, start here:

stop listening to your demagogues who redirect your rightful anger at your government. the people robbing you blind are corporations, not your fellow poor citizens who just need healthcare. money influence in our government and our congress is destroying our nation. stop focusing your hate at your poor brothers and sisters. focus your righteous anger at the corrupting influence of corporate dollars that pay for the propaganda that fools you, all the while stabbing you in the back with a smile

stop hating your fellow man who just needs healthcare, your anger's direction is paid for by healthcare companies and their demagogues for hire

don't focus your anger on your government. focus your anger on the assholes in your government who are supposed to represent you but instead sell you out to the highest bidder. you need to reform government, not destroy it

and finally, focus your anger on the corporations themselves, who take away your job, defy your rights, and destroy your country with their special interests, all the while paying demagogue assholes to tell you that it is your poor neighbor who is to blame, because he needs healthcare and unemployment benefits, that they deny him

if this is too michael moore for you, recall that what motivated him to initially make films like roger and me was hatred for gm for destroying flint michigan. dear tea party right winger: you get poorer, and you get angrier, and they get richer, and they take your lifeblood out of this country. you want to talk patriotism? go ahead and hate michael moore for his left leaning beliefs if you want, but don't hate him because he fights for YOU: the future third world residents of the formerly great country known as the usa

know the real villain: corporations, not the government. the government is only the villain insofar as corporations have paid them to be

the entire company, middle management and upper management, is moving to india. they have an internal timeframe for this, sped up and slowed down by economic and political influences. of course they will retain a toehold here, but it will be a shell of its former self

good for india. but how is that not a betrayal of the usa in your mind?

Can't you also see it as the USA betraying IBM? Government is so entrenched in our economy that companies are forced to play the political game. Don't lobby congressmen? You'll be taxed out of existence. Your competitors will get subsidies instead of you, and you'll go out of business. Our patent office is worse, and the "arms race" of spurious patents made necessary by our IP laws has been well documented/ranted about here.

Government controls what you can import and what you can export. Who you can hire. What you can pay them. What you can charge for your product. Where you can sell your product. Who you have to pay for the privilege of doing so. How many clicks you can use to sell. Which states can extort you.

Your entire existence is at the whim and mercy of a capricious government. If you are successful, your "windfall profits" will be subject to special taxes. If you are unsuccessful, you better hope you and not your competitors are "too big to fail."

Now, have patience with my anarcho-Libertarian rant. Even I know that cheap foreign labor is a big draw, not just Evil Big Bad Government. But, nobody - no one in this country, in government, in this forum - has any love for IBM, or any of our enterprises. Our large corporations and their executives are reviled, justly or not, and then driven away.

And we wonder why. You don't really want to make the Ayn Rand's intellectual masturbation come true, do you? I'd hate to have to listen to a 100-page speech by John Galt in meatspace because we have an paranoid anti-corporatism fetish.

Instead of branding IBM a "traitor," we should recognize the business realities we have created. For all the benefits of regulation and high wages, this is an inevitable consequence.

We should instead be welcoming those who are doing business in this country - for example Toyota, despite being a "Japanese" company, is building plants in America while GM has been steadily moving to Mexico.

We should also recognize that in the "race to the bottom," the bottom is rising up. China is now too expensive to outsource some industries to - Malaysia, Thailand, and other countries are taking a lot of their manufacturing business. And then their standards of living will rise, making offshoring to them unattractive.

Now, if I end my rant with the incantation "I know I'll get modded down, but..", I'll get favorable moderation instead, right? I guess my point is that getting out the tar and feathers for the simple realities of business is like castigating an apple for falling from the tree.

How would moving a company's global headquarters to another country be "betrayal"? Some sense of loyalty? Like most large international corporations, IBM's operational decisions appear to be driven by little more than shareholder value and legal requirements.

Consider that IBM is already primarily a global company. More than two thirds of the IBM workforce is outside the US, according to IBM's 2008 annual report.

To call IBM a "US company" right now would be very misleading. Even if the headquarters and senio

The govt should pass a new law that forces companies of all sizes to provide a breakdown of where they do business and where they hire. They should punish companies that do not hire where they make and sell things.

Every business should be forced to hire in the locality where they make money. This should be done not only countrywide, but statewide, citywide and blockwide.

Forget about stupid things like 'comparative advantage' - we will follow Mao's great leap forward. That will create a lot of wealth.

The govt should pass a new law that forces companies of all sizes to provide a breakdown of where they do business and where they hire. They should punish companies that do not hire where they make and sell things.

Maybe not. But companies which receive tax breaks for "creating jobs" should be required to publish employment stats.

All companies, especially publicly held ones, should be forced to report their labor figures every quarter along with their financial information. Just like we should track capital flowing in and out of our country, we should be able to track jobs as well.
Remember, the more you know...

Yeah, this info isn't being hidden from the government, it is being hidden from shareholders (who likely don't care as long as it is profitable), and thus from the public as a whole (who do care, but likely won't do anything about it).

We're projected to have more Indian employees than American in the next year or two. We already have over 100k in India, and we're ramping up in Argentina and Brazil.

Meanwhile, internal outsourcing has been an absolute mess. Our Indian-based helpdesks are reviled, both inside IBM and by our customers who use them. Indian technical resources are likewise extremely difficult to work with, and it has nothing to do with language or timezones - they refuse to speak up (from what we're told, "it's cultural", meaning don't make an issue of it or you'll get sent to sensitivity training). A solution can be completely wrong - as in, the contract says we were supposed to start work two months in the past or numbers literally don't add up, yet they won't question blatant errors, and won't respond if you question them. Apparently questioning someone else is deeply frowned upon, and makes them next to useless as anything but strict, brainless order takers. They have no initiative whatsoever, and seemingly no capability of independent creative thought. Maybe it's "cultural", maybe it's poor training - I don't know. I do know it's not working, but all executive management sees is that they cost a fraction to hire as western workers. You get what you pay for, and all that...

None of this applies to the many Indians I work with who are based in other geographies. But for whatever reason, Indians in India are just extremely poor replacements for western workers.

Totally true. We had a UK manager go to India and deliberately give them an impossible task to do. For 2 weeks he kept asking on progress and was told everything was going fine. On delivery day they said it was all going great. Nothing turned up. The day after he asked where it was 'nearly there'. Eventually he confronted them and asked if they had made any progress at all. They said yes. Even after he told them it was impossible they said they had got something.
That particular cultural quirk is very hard to work with and requires very careful questioning in a way that allows them to tell the truth but make it sound positive. It very rarely (IME) gets spoken of as a problem though in outsourcing circles though.

"Totally true. We had a UK manager go to India and deliberately give them an impossible task to do. For 2 weeks he kept asking on progress and was told everything was going fine. On delivery day they said it was all going great. Nothing turned up. The day after he asked where it was 'nearly there'. Eventually he confronted them and asked if they had made any progress at all. They said yes. Even after he told them it was impossible they said

Indians with any talent get the hell out of India. You will never get good employees by outsourcing to India, because good employees won't accept a lifestyle of disease, pollution, and waist-high piles of garbage everywhere while earning $5/hour.

Want to hire talented Indians? Look for them in Europe or North America.

Indians working in IBM ***IN INDIA*** appear to be essentially useless without any ability to do anything on their own. If you've not asked them to do something specific, they'll happily sit doing nothing for the 5.5 hours before you get into the office, instead of acting on their own initiative and doing something that needs doing (even when its obvious, e.g. a list of defects that need fixing, tests that need running etc). Curiously, if they are

There are only money corporations. Those who run multinational organizations care nothing about whether their money comes from China, India, the USA or Mars. They have no loyalty to the USA or its people, and as the government and people of India and China will soon discover, they have no loyalty to them either. The wealthy can live anywhere. It's all one world to them. Only the sets and the local operating environments change.

The poor of the world have no enemy but the wealthy. Loyalty to "country" or political affiliation is just a con for the rubes.

You've allowed the media to frame the debate and your thoughts for you. "Isms" are also a con job, an a rather outmoded 19th century con job at that.

Interesting that you think that because I see the wealthy as an enemy you assume I have communist or Marxist sympathies. I'm of Estonian descent. My uncle was murdered by Stalinists and my Grandfather was given a free Siberian vacation, so you might want to rethink that one.

As a soon-to-be IBM ex-employee caught up in this latest round of layoffs (or "Resource Action" in IBM corporate lingo), I'm glad that IBM's total disregard for its own country's workforce is finally coming to light. IBM has been engaged in this behavior for years now, yet it has done such a good job burying the information so it gets little to no coverage by the media. In fact, according to a leaked management-level PPT posted on the Alliance@IBM site, IBM upper management is actively implementing a policy where even employees rated by their managers as solid contributors are artificially given lower ratings in subsequent years if their salary is deemed too high so that there is a pretext to push them out of the company and re-hire cheaper labor abroad. While I truly hope that the government would provide much needed intervention, I sincerely doubt any meaningful action will be taken. The best thing we can do is ensure as much media coverage as possible.

A lot of posters are saying "IBM should be able to hire whoever" and "IBM should not have to give any information that IBM is not legally required to give."

Okay fine. But, if IBM wants to enjoy all the lavish benefits of being a US company, such as: stimulus money, tax breaks, and preferential treatment in obtaining government contracts; then shouldn't IBM actually be a US company?

IBM is saying "the US government should be especially kind to us, because we provide all these jobs for US citizens" and "helping IBM is a good value for US taxpayers because those tax dollars come back to help the US."

But, are those assertions true? Should the US taxpayers be forced to give IBM special treatment if those assertions are not true? And how do we really know what is, or is not, true; if IBM refuses to tell us?

Seems to me that if IBM wants special treatment from the US taxpayers, then IBM needs to tell the taxpayers what is really going on.

It's old news but it should be stressed that corporations are legally obligated toward their shareholders to maximize profits, and this leads to countless sad and ironic situations like this one. Corporations are thus legally obligated to use lobbyists to bend laws, corporations are obligated to outsource jobs even if those are currently held by shareholders themselves, corporations are obligated to maximize externalities which usually wreaks havoc on the environment, etc. Hell, assuming that releasing their headcounts would hurt their business (as it would!), they are basically legally obligated not to do so.

That is totally fucked up and backwards, plain and simple. Like American drug laws, it seems inconceivable that any group of reasonable legislators would ever design this current system. We have historical quirks and abuses to thanks for this.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this. IBM is a huge tech giant, similar to Oracle or maybe even HP. They produce rock-stable, less-than-exciting products that run the back end of most businesses. Microsott is even heading this direction. The problem is, when you get that huge and have shareholders/executives constantly demanding lower costs, eventually the offshoring lever gets pulled. It's awful that these large companies are contributing to unemployment in the process, but do you really think they can be stopped?

I'd call myself left of center, and would support measures to at least discourage companies from moving jobs offshore. This wouldn't be appropriate in most cases, but when you have 300 million people competing against a huge labor pool that costs 90% less, the stabilizers need to be kicked on. However, I know it's not realistic. Why? Most IT people I know are incredibly conservative/Libertarian/Ayn Rand followers. Mention a union, professional organization, or other stabilizer to these people, and most go off into a Fox News-style tirade about socialism or how unions are evil and corrupt.

If our own profession doesn't stand up for itself, we can't expect anyone else to. (My opinion: People need to get out of this "rugged individualism/entrepreneurial" fantasy that they seem to have. You're not a superstar, you're not going to start a business and become an overnight billionaire, and you're never going to be one of the outsized celebrities or business tycoons that you celebrate. It just isn't a realistic dream to base your life around. But that's my opinion.)

Another problem is this - the computing and IT workforce has still not decided on a direction. Do we want to be a profession? If so, then we need to start standardizing education of new members, and do a better job at defining fundamentals of development, systems engineering, etc. Do we want to be a skilled trade? If so, then we need to set up an apprenticeship-style training system that gives new recruits a decent broad background, consider a union ^Ubargaining unit ^U^Upolitical influence committee and think about a real career ladder that doesn't end at age 40. Or, do we want to be a branch of traditional engineering? That's almost like a profession - and I'm all for the idea of people being responsible for their work like PEs are.

I would definintely go for the traditional-engineering or profession route, but there's another problem. Skill sets in IT vary wildly. I've worked with absolute geniuses and...umm...less-than-geniuses. It drives me nuts when less-than-geniuses get hired as contractors for triple my salary and I wind up having to tell them how to solve something. Since there's no set way to validate skills, people can fake their way through interviews and wind up on staff causing havoc while they learn. Same goes in reverse...someone who's really smart but bad at selling themselves can wind up not getting a job, or a much lower salary than they're entitled to.

Anyway, back to the offshoring problem. Everyone's still in love with cheap goods and cheap labor, and hasn't learned much from the recent economic downturn. People are still spending way too much, even though the contraction in the credit markets has helped a lot. So we have a choice - either cut back the spending so we don't have to demand raises of our already-high salaries, or find some way to differentiate ourselves. That's never going to happen - too many IT problems get buried by lower-level managers before the decision makers ever see them.

Most IT people I know are incredibly conservative/Libertarian/Ayn Rand followers. Mention a union, professional organization, or other stabilizer to these people, and most go off into a Fox News-style tirade about socialism or how unions are evil and corrupt.

I think you misunderestimate the power of cognitive dissonance. In my experience, most libertarians are all for protectionism when their own jobs are on the line.

Global free trade in services allows American workers to take on more productive roles, which is good for the economy and leads to further job growth.

Here's the problem with that...we're at the end of the value chain, and most people won't have anywhere to go in the next phase. I'd agree that free trade is good, but when it leaves out so many people, you have a recipe for disaster.

In any country, and especially one as big as ours is, you have to have work for every level of ability. Not everyone is or shoul

It's funny how all these companies that are laying of U.S. workers talk about globalization. As a shareholder in many companies, I wonder why they don't outsource the Executive jobs? I mean why should I pay some U.S. CEO a billion dollars, when I can pay a similarly talented, if not more talented individual, from anywhere else in the world a million dollars to do the same job.
People want globalization and capitalism for others, and they want protectionism and socialism for themselves. When they start outsourcing executive jobs and quit giving corporate America bailouts, I'll believe that everybody wants globalization and capitalism.
Furthermore as a U.S. taxpayer, I have no problem with IBM offshoring every single last one of their jobs, just don't come to my government asking for business when you do. In fact feel free to move to these other countries that are so great for business, good riddance!

I think the big problem with publicly traded companies is that the shareholders demand an increased return no matter what. If you, the CEO, won't outsource to India, they'll vote you out and hire someone who will. It won't be a long search because a few million a year can cause people to do a lot of less-than-ethical things.

Also, another problem is that companies want to remain American, with all of the benefits of being an American corporation, but none of the responsibilities. That is, they don't want

however what is appalling is that, despite all the exploitations they suffer at the hands of their corporations, copyright, patent trolling, ACTA, healthcare shit and alike, there are STILL people getting worked up when the obvious is stated, like the parent i posted.

I'm not saying you're wrong but when it comes to US Citizens losing their jobs, yes, the government has a problem with that.

I won't care to elaborate on why that is, but the fact that you seem surprised is a little confusing. It shouldn't be surprising that a government has more of an interest in the health of the job market for its citizens over the job[less] rate of another countries population.

True globalization would include the free flow of people as well as business. Of course all countries who claim to be supporters of globalization have tariff and subsidies as well, so it's a bit of a joke.

Are you surprised with real unemployment approaching 20% that citizens of the U.S. might be just a little bit upset over a company shipping jobs overseas but then claiming to be a US company when bidding for U.S. government jobs and tax breaks?

What level of unemployment should we reach in the united states before the government can act to protect its citizens?

we here in turkey are surprised that noone can use any seeds but monsanto's, an american company's today. even the seeds farmers had been keeping for generations have been banned, through bought out laws. and how it takes filthy underhanded measures to kill competition through any means possible, to the extent of going the way of modifying its own seeds to kill out any plant from the same species not genetically modified by monsanto.

in a sidenote, some states in usa also have banned monsanto seeds, because they found out what monsanto was doing.

all because you americans have adopted a stupid, beyond logic approach to 'unregulated' business, and ended up not only being a bitch of your own corporations yourselves, but also making them a major problem plaguing the entire world.

well excuse me, but, you people in u.s. have no right to complain over ANYthing. in the end, this was the political ideology you adopted (hands off businesses so they can screw everyone, everything), and those were the people you voted for.

As an American, I apologize on behalf of those of us (who are a minority, I believe) who don't agree with the way our government doesn't regulate businesses, and has allowed this place to turn into a fascist/corporatist state. Personally, I'd like to see our country operate a lot more like Switzerland: keep to ourselves, don't get involved in foreign conflicts, and make quality products and sell them.

I'm sure a lot of Americans would like to do something about it, but with a two-party political system wher

I see that you have no problem throwing around gross generalizations, so I will toss a few of my own.

If any American corporation is doing something you don't like in your country, it is YOUR government's fault for allowing it, and ultimately YOURS for letting them stay in power.

"But wait!" you cry, as the sad realization of your own impotence in the face of a corrupt system that you cannot overthrow and fix no matter how much you might swear and yell and scream. This system allowed it to happen. You are the victim. Right?

See how that works?

Yeah, it's the same shit for us too. Life sucks all the way around, but don't act like you can sit there in your ivory tower and preach about the ills of the world. We are all to blame equally for the mess we are in.

its american attitude. they are generally detached and uncaring for many stuff, especially what their government and corporations cause in other countries. that is if they have any interest in what is happening in other countries at all, most think that u.s. is the center of the world and 'best place to be', as if scandinavian countries didnt exist..

they rant on and on about various stuff, deliver judgments about other countries and their positions, other nations, and whatnot if they have any international

India isn't too bad but a lot of the jobs will be going to China, which IS all fucking communist. When I lived in China I applied to the local IBM to do business intelligence / data warehousing. They wanted to pay me a Chinese wage which would be OK there in China. But IBM wanted to send me to the USA on an L visa which lets them continue to pay the China wage the whole time. I made it through three levels of interviews before I found this out. When I said that as a US citizen I'd have to make at least US minimum wage (which would NOT be cool at all) they hung up and stopped responding to my calls. If you have an IBM consultant in the USA who is Chinese - he (she) is getting paid about $1,000/month while you're getting billed $120/hr from Blue.

Generally, people do not arrive at conclusions through logical means. Certainty is a feeling, not the end result of logic. People start with the conclusions they want to arrive at, then work backwards to create a chain of rationalizations leading there.

But we did not elect our politicians to further India's interests. We did not elect them to further IBM's. We elected them to further our interests. That being said, it would be hypocritical to proclaim a love of free markets and libertarianism, while supporting protectionist policies and government intervention. Hypocritical in the extreme. However, this would not make them communists, it is much more accurate to call them hypocritical protectionists.

What would NOT be hypocritical would be to call for a citizen lead and enforced boycott of IBM. One can be a libertarian and love the free market, but still not want to do business with companies that screw over your friends and neighbors. However, I think you will find that most libertarians want license to do whatever they please, rather than desiring true freedom, which takes work, and principles.

One can be a libertarian and love the free market, but still not want to do business with companies that screw over your friends and neighbors.

And, I think, this is the essence of a free market. Free Marketeers don't (er, shouldn't) stipulate why people can choose not to purchase a product or service, just that they can. If a number of people decide, collectively, to boycott IBM, that's about as "Free Market" as it gets.

If a market is free, anyone can decide not to do business with anyone else, for any reason. Why should anyone give a rat's ass about 'market efficiency' if said efficiency benefits someone else? It is simply amazing to me that you will so vocally defend companies acting in out of self interest, from individuals acting out of their own self interest. Why do you value the self interest of certain groups of people (corporations) over other groups (boycotters)?

You may hate it, but people will always band together into groups to protect their interests, with or without a government. In a true lasseiz faire capitalist society, people will create their own social structures to protect their interests, there will be countless advocacy and interest groups that will use all the tools at their disposal, including boycotts, public pressure, and educational campaigns, to punish companies that do not perform as the members wish.

You've provided a sterling example of why I dislike most libertarians. You don't want freedom, you want license to do whatever you please, for yourself, and everyone else should shut the fuck up and do what they are told. It is absolutely hypocrisy of the worst sort. It is also elitist, supports tyranny and encourages heirarchy.

In short, you are a statist. You just think corporations should BE the state.

Some people believe in the heirarchical status quo: those in power deserve to be in power, those who fail deserve to fail. It is a defense mechanism against a cruel and unjust universe. If we just believe that, despite all appearances, the world is fair and just, we won't suffer this terrible feeling of guilt, and we won't have this frightening desire to act to end injustice. So the world is fair and just, those who have deserve to have, those who have not deserve to have not, and any attempt to change thin

It is their membership. Over the past year, private sector Union jobs have declined by over a million workers. Ironically the public sector has gone the other way.
Unions work for collective bargaining only when the changes made are beneficial for both the worker and the employer. The 40 hour work week, child labor laws, safety standards and health benefits actually improved the productivity of workers and thus the bottom line for the employer.
In this particular case, I believe IBM Alliance just wants to form an official IBM union as seed corn for the IT industry. I suspect from the issues they submit press releases on that they are not interested in the success of IBM the company and only play lip service to IBMers as employees. If they, or any traditional union represented the IT employees, it is likely the difficulties in finding mutually beneficial improvements will only speed the outsourcing.
There is room for a collective bargaining counter to upper management, but it would more it would be more likely to succeed outside the traditional union infrastructure.

You forgot to mention the 40hr work week and a minimum wage. Unions have their downside, but at least one generation has been significantly better off for their existence.

In the US, hat would be our grandfathers' generation.

In the last 50 years or so, the big US unionolpoly (AFL-CIO) has done very little to keep jobs or improve conditions. Mostly it has focused on pursuing unsustainable benefits packages for its dwindling membership, enriching its managers, and allying with organized crime.

Unions can be good, but the AFL-CIO has given unionization a bad name.

For some of us it was our generation. And we tried, we really tried to warn you. Then for years we kept getting told by the white collar workers that it was all our fault that the manufacturing jobs were shifting away. We kept trying to tell you guys that your turn would come next, because we looked at the situation, hell we were living the situation so it was easy to see, that the big increases were going to wall street, that's where the massive skim was going, but you refused to listen. You believed the big liars instead. Because those crooks are "white collar" too, so you automatically identify with them, so you believed those guys instead of the older generation blue collars who tried to tell you the straight shit.

Even now, with all the emphasis on the economy and every single possible clue you need to see what is really going on..crickets. Mass denial. The white collars generic "you" will not ever understand that your own government and big economic leaders have been hell bent on stealing everything, all of it, yes even from you, then getting the theft victims, starting to include you now, to blame each other instead of the real crooks.

Enjoy the big bucks "you" might still be getting now, because it won't last long. The same globalists who ripped us off and then shifted the blame are doing it to you now, but you'll wait and do nothing as one by one by one by one you are picked off, sniped, until there is just one little special snowflake left who melts away whimpering, wondering what happened.

And you'll never blame the correct people, because you got suckered completely into believing their globalism and stock market bullshit that you could get something for nothing forever, and that you were somehow special and exempt from the great global wage arbitrage scam because you are "white collar", and you won't notice that global wage arbitrage is never accompanied with global cost of living reductions in places that lose mass numbers of jobs. You see that's the con, they claim that costs of living will go down, and more jobs will just magically appear, just spring out of the ether, but they don't, and you have had an entire generation and a half to see that, but you still aren't seeing it.

That's the lie they use to sell that con, and it is very effective so far, because they gave you credit and "stock" numbers instead of real wage increases. You can't even tell those things apart, you believe those crooks that they are the same thing.

People don't pick up on it until they lose their job..and look for work..and look for work. And a year later are still looking for work and they are now completely broke and wondering when the unemployment checks will stop. But by then they finally have taken the time to take a real look at the situation and figure things out better, but it is too late then to do anything about it to help yourself.

And the cost of living never adjusts down to deal with the lost wages and jobs, that stays the same or goes higher, because those thieves are never satisfied and they want it all and they 100% own government and keep the laws in their favor, always. Oh, they let you "vote", and you keep voting for one of the two hand picked for you candidates at the top, believing this is your "choice", or one of the two hand picked for you candidates for lesser than the top job. And the cycle continues and you keep wondering why.

Oh, the unions were never bastions of purity, not even in your grandpa's day. Nor was management. Nor was government, not even small town government.

It all boils down to a simple but overlooked aspect of human nature: people tend to be most public spirited when they see themselves getting the most out of the public good in the long run.

So it's no accident that you see unions willing to destroy the companies they work for to get short term gains when they expect their jobs to be shipped overseas. Especially since the top level managers were making a killing offshoring jobs. A *safe* killing too. There's no reason the CEO job couldn't be sent overseas. There's lots of really talented people in India who would do that job for less. Hell, if that's to exotic, you could still save bundle by replacing yoru top level management with Europeans.

The only reason that management doesn't offshore their own jobs is because they are in a position to stop that from happening. And you expect *unions* to look out for the company's interests under these conditions? To refrain from screwing the company so management can do it first?

As for organized crime, you're worried about the teamsters, but not Goldman Sachs? I suppose it makes a kind of ironic sense: if a criminal has enough power to draft the laws and get friendly justices appointed to the courts, *technically* he's not a criminal any longer.

We're in a quick buck economy, where it's about getting yours before somebody else grabs his. If you're a worker and your union runs the company into the ground, you're a villain. If you're a CEO and you run your company into the ground, you're senatorial material.

You forget how badly employees were treated back before Unions. Alot of the places that 'treat their employees just fine without unions.' Started doing so, and continue to do so.. in order to keep the unions out, not because of some altruistic feelings for their employees.

Yeah! Race 'em to the bottom!?!? Or, maybe structure our government's trade laws to be more beneficial to American workers? And tax the IBM executives at a higher rate if they're going to be living in the comfort of the United States while making their money off the poor in the developing world and destroying the American middle class (whose provide soldiers, policemen, firemen, and the government that make living and running the company in the US so comfortable)?

One obvious move would be to not allow anything to be sold in the US that was not manufactured in accordance with US environmental, health and safety, and child labor standards. But that would require a certification regime for foreign manufactures which could probably be easily circumvented with a few well-placed bribes. Another obvious move would be to find a way to prevent multinationals from playing games with internal transfers of goods such that all profits are taken in the region with the lowest tax